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If my memory serves me correctly, Tony has played with Bob on three or four occasions, The last two/three occasions, they've reached the q/f stage. I think that's no mean feat considering the relative standing of US badminton previously. Who would you suspect contributes more in getting to the q/f stages? Tony or Bob??

(and no disrespect to Bob M. This is a purely objective point of view on the play and in no way is meant to constitute a personal attack)

I've checked worldbadminton.net and it seems that Tony G/Bob has won 3 tounaments last year, and have also reached the quarter finals twice. Anyway, their ranking (no.9) is higher than Kevin/Howard (no.17). This tells you how much Tony G. has improved the standard of US badminton.

One combination I would love to see is Kim Dong Moon partnering Tony Gunawan.

Thanks modius for bringing the fact to my attention. I have since checked with World Badminton.

Yes, Tony and Bob won three times in Sep/Nov last year but those were not major tourneys. They reached the quarter-finals of the S'pore Open in August 2002 and the Thai Open early this year.

Unfortunately, in the three other tourneys they participated thereafter for this year, they did not reach the QF stage, having twice entered the 1/16 rounds of both the AE and the Swiss Open in Feb. They fared worse in the Japan Open in April 2003.

Of course the opposition got hotter in the major tourneys such as the AE and JO as many more world-class pairs vied for the top positions. To that extent Tony and Bob have to work much harder and the results revealed that they had quite a way to go. But to be ranked the 9th best pair in the world is not too bad for this relatively new partnership. They can only get better if they play more often together.

back in INA, he was at the same level with Halim, Candra and Sigit. Candra and Sigit had a slump with their disagreements and partner switching. in this WC, they have shown that they are almost back at their former level. Tony on the other hand, seem to have eclipse them and raise his own game yet another level. he is even faster and smart at the net, even when facing Sigit/Candra in the 2005 WC finals, he was able to put enormous pressure on them and always intercepting and keeping the birdie down. he was the key to the WC win.

Had a conversation with a badminton person and that person had no special opinion on Tony G.; even rated Halim over Tony because Halim has a great smash.

What's good about Tony's play is that you don't see any special shots (apart form a few cross court netshots). It's very interesting to see a person with no obvious oustanding aspect of the game playing at the highest level. (unlike Sigit, Rexy).

IMHO , Tony's play shows intelligence. That's why I like his play.

From the few games i watched (one live), I would say a special shot of him is his "flicked" smash.

back in INA, he was at the same level with Halim, Candra and Sigit. Candra and Sigit had a slump with their disagreements and partner switching. in this WC, they have shown that they are almost back at their former level. Tony on the other hand, seem to have eclipse them and raise his own game yet another level. he is even faster and smart at the net, even when facing Sigit/Candra in the 2005 WC finals, he was able to put enormous pressure on them and always intercepting and keeping the birdie down. he was the key to the WC win.

i think so..he does improve a lot and make himself into higher level...one of the greatest double player ever..b4 he was partner with candra or halim ..
coz he had strong partner that he didn't hv to play the way being partner with howard... now he is like covering 70% of the court while they were differencing.....tony is playing much smart than he was and his netplay was amazing........even against legend like candra and sigit...he is still out play those two former world champ in 1997 and siver in 2003.....

back in INA, he was at the same level with Halim, Candra and Sigit. Candra and Sigit had a slump with their disagreements and partner switching. in this WC, they have shown that they are almost back at their former level. Tony on the other hand, seem to have eclipse them and raise his own game yet another level. he is even faster and smart at the net, even when facing Sigit/Candra in the 2005 WC finals, he was able to put enormous pressure on them and always intercepting and keeping the birdie down. he was the key to the WC win.

I think it is all in their playing style. I think Tony is better at net, set up and control, not good for smash. Candra and Sigit are even between net and defense. Sigit might just slightly better on smash (not at Halim's level) and Candra might just slightly better than Sigit on set up and control, (but not at Tony's level). Halim is good on smash, slightly weak on other aspects. Here just a comparison among 4 of them using their standard. So when aging factor comes in, Tony get efffected least and he is even getting smarter. All other 3 could get smarter but they lose more on smashing power while aging. And this is another reason why Tony can play with so many people and perform well. This is all because the playing style. I can say if Tony has a chance to partner with Sigit, they will be on top of world, too. But if Halim partner with Sigit, they won't. Even at highest MD level, playing style is still important factor even they can do everything well compare with other players. Now days, MD rely on attack a lot, so it is hard to find a player with Tony's style. This is made him unique. Frankly, I think Tony, Candra, Sigit and Halim are all great legends for MD last 10 years.
Tony/Candra, Tony/Halim, Candra/Sigit - proved to be best already
Tony/Sigit - I believe they could be top if they have such chances
Candra/Halim - Possible to be the 1 top if they partner long enough
Sigit/Halim - Least possibility to be on top 1

[QUOTE=ymq03
Tony/Candra, Tony/Halim, Candra/Sigit - proved to be best already
Tony/Sigit - I believe they could be top if they have such chances
Candra/Halim - Possible to be the 1 top if they partner long enough
Sigit/Halim - Least possibility to be on top 1[/QUOTE]

Very interesting observation you made.

I don't know whether, given the chance, Indonesia will try out your favoured combinations, which I surmise to be as follows:

Tony/Sgit
Candra/Halim

But we know that on record, Tony/Candra and subsequently Candra/Sigit have done well. I may be wrong, but I thought the last time they were together Candra/Halim did not perform to expectation when Sigit had to be left out because of his 'problem'.

Of course, with both Tony and Halim expressing their desire to represent the US in the near future, I'm afraid your dream teams may not have a chance to be experimented!

I think it is all in their playing style. I think Tony is better at net, set up and control, not good for smash. Candra and Sigit are even between net and defense. Sigit might just slightly better on smash (not at Halim's level) and Candra might just slightly better than Sigit on set up and control, (but not at Tony's level). Halim is good on smash, slightly weak on other aspects.

I agree with some of your points but not all.

My belief a smash is much more than what we see on TV.

There are slower smashes, steeper smashes, flatter smashes. Yes, relative to the other three persons, Tony's smash may be a little slower. But, it's just as effective in that it produces the desired effect. The desired effect is not only a winning point. It's a stroke move that sets the play to win the point. In this respect, a smash can be effective two or three strokes earlier if it creates the advantage for your team to win the point.

You're my favourite men's doubles player. It was great to see you play in a major final again.

In my eyes, you are one of the greatest men's doubles players in the history of modern badminton. Correction, the greatest!

I can second that. I really didnt see tony in action until he came to the US and i caught a glimpse of a ~ 45 seconds video playing for US with Khan Bob MALAYTHONG. Before that i only read about tony in olympic and all england results. During that ~45 seconds, i saw a lot of skills that were extraordinary. He save some sure kill shots, and on defense rallies, he can turn the table around into offense, at will. Alway thinking of the next best shot. No need to exbound on his net inteception and skill, his net shot induce a racket-clashing 3/4 lift from sigit/candra allowing halim to smash into winning the match point at the 2001 AE. I know MD is a team effort and one can also pick the best team but if i had to single one MD player, i say Tony G is it.

I would disagree with a couple of points. I don't think Tony and Sigit would be a better pair than Tony and Chandra.

Halim no doubt (had) the most ferocious smash. Sigit the steepest, because he gets up so high, however his smash is prone to hitting the net. Chandra's smash is also very consistent and powerful. Tony's smash is the weakest of the lot, but nonetheless very effective.

They are all equally good midcourt. Tony and Sigit excel at the front, and Chandra and Halim seem happy at the back.

There is another player called Tri Kusharyanto? who partnered Sigit for a while, when Chandra has a fling with Halim. Although Tri kus was not as brilliant as the mentioned individuals, they did better than the latter, because Sigit has better vision at the net, than Chandra or Halim. Tri and Sigit qualified for the Olympics if I recall correctly, when Chandra and Halim did not.

Chandra and Sigit was in a battle with Tony during the WC final. There is still a lot of competition between them, and you could see they enjoy the points when Tony was smiling even after losing a point. That is the reason why I think they isolated Tony. Picking on Howard would have been easy, if all they was after was the trophy. Instead, they tried to take the hard route by beating Tony Gunawan.

Chandra and Sigit was in a battle with Tony during the WC final. There is still a lot of competition between them, and you could see they enjoy the points when Tony was smiling even after losing a point. That is the reason why I think they isolated Tony. Picking on Howard would have been easy, if all they was after was the trophy. Instead, they tried to take the hard route by beating Tony Gunawan.

I agree, actually, I think there's a strong psychological factor involved here in Candra/Sigit directing the shots to Tony...they don't want to be seen as 'cowards' by targeting Bach who is perceived to be the weaker partner, in a way, it was probably a personal thing with Tony - not necessarily antagonistic, but when you have a long history playing badminton with someone, you wanna make those rare occasions memorable. The satisfaction would have been a lot greater had they won by 'beating' Tony, rather than Howard Bach..unfortunately they didn't succeed.

I agree, actually, I think there's a strong psychological factor involved here in Candra/Sigit directing the shots to Tony...they don't want to be seen as 'cowards' by targeting Bach who is perceived to be the weaker partner, in a way, it was probably a personal thing with Tony - not necessarily antagonistic, but when you have a long history playing badminton with someone, you wanna make those rare occasions memorable. The satisfaction would have been a lot greater had they won by 'beating' Tony, rather than Howard Bach..unfortunately they didn't succeed.

I don't want to start another 'conspiracy theory' talk here but apontoh had brought out a reasonable point, that is sigit/candra play their shots quite equally on tony and howard, if not more to tony (plus tony had picked up more shots in the middle mid area). If above is true, then it is a strategy executed by the INA team on their own accord, and not to conspire to lose to the US but to give the crowd a exciting and longer games AND still hope strategically** to win it too.

** Add to this is that howard did played very very well, period. If a perceived weaker player playing very well and seem energetic (howard), and tony is more skillful but seem more tired, it is reasonable for INA team to direct shots to tony too as a winning strategy(plus maybe also don't want to seen as cowards as apontoh had said), not a plan to play to lose. As many had noted, tony had made his share of unforced errors in the 2nd half of game 2 and in game 3.

There are slower smashes, steeper smashes, flatter smashes. Yes, relative to the other three persons, Tony's smash may be a little slower. But, it's just as effective in that it produces the desired effect. The desired effect is not only a winning point. It's a stroke move that sets the play to win the point. In this respect, a smash can be effective two or three strokes earlier if it creates the advantage for your team to win the point.

Agree. Tony is very good on flatter smashes. My original post means steeper and back court smash. In now days MD, you need one to do this, otherwsie people just do lifts and you would hard to create chances for kill (due to bad return) or do a direct kill with weak back court hard smash. And if they keep lifting, you would not have much chance at the net, either. This is why WD now last so long these days.

I would disagree with a couple of points. I don't think Tony and Sigit would be a better pair than Tony and Chandra.

Halim no doubt (had) the most ferocious smash. Sigit the steepest, because he gets up so high, however his smash is prone to hitting the net. Chandra's smash is also very consistent and powerful. Tony's smash is the weakest of the lot, but nonetheless very effective.

They are all equally good midcourt. Tony and Sigit excel at the front, and Chandra and Halim seem happy at the back.

There is another player called Tri Kusharyanto? who partnered Sigit for a while, when Chandra has a fling with Halim. Although Tri kus was not as brilliant as the mentioned individuals, they did better than the latter, because Sigit has better vision at the net, than Chandra or Halim. Tri and Sigit qualified for the Olympics if I recall correctly, when Chandra and Halim did not.

I do not mean Tony/Sigit would be better then Tony/Chandra. I just mean if Tony/Sigit could be partern, they would reach top 1 fairly easily.

I think Sigit has equal skill at net with Chandra, but Chandra is a more stable player than Sigit. You need cool to work at net. So when Chandra and Sigit play together, Chandra covers more in the front (just my observation) even they are very close to all categories.

I think Chandra only partner with Halim in very short period while Sigit had drug problem as another post said. So in my original post, I said if they can partenr long enough, they might be top 1. Of course at that time, PBSI put Tony and Chandra together and they delivered results faster. I do not think Chandra missed Olympics 2004 with Halim. I thought Chandra was partner with someone else. And the rank Chandra got was very close to Sigit (like their points were so close up to last open before Olympics).